Is climate policy doing more harm than good?

Cyclone Halma aftermath.

After covering global warming ­debates as a journalist on and off for almost 30 years, with initial credulity, then growing scepticism, I have come to the conclusion that the risk of dangerous global warming, now and in the future, has been greatly exaggerated while the policies enacted to ­mitigate the risk have done more harm than good, both economically and environmentally, and will continue to do so.

And I am treated as some kind of pariah for coming to this conclusion. Increasingly, many people would like to outlaw, suppress, prosecute and censor all discussion of what they call “the science” rather than engage in debate. We’re told that it’s impertinent to question “the science” and that we must think as we are told. But ­arguments from authority are the refuge of priests.

These days there is a legion of climate spin doctors. Their job is to keep the debate binary: either you believe climate change is real and dangerous or you’re a denier who thinks it’s a hoax. But there’s a third possibility they refuse to ­acknowledge: that it’s real but not dangerous. That’s what I mean by lukewarming, and I think it is by far the most likely prognosis.

I am not claiming that carbon dioxide is not a greenhouse gas; it is. I am not saying that its concentration in the atmosphere is not increasing; it is. I am not saying the main cause of that increase is not the burning of fossil fuels; it is. I am not saying the climate does not change; it does. I am not saying that the atmosphere is not warmer today than it was 50 or 100 years ago; it is. And I am not saying that carbon dioxide emissions are not likely to have caused some (probably more than half) of the warming since 1950. I agree with the consensus on all these points.

Some of my scientific friends accuse me of inconsistently agreeing with the scientific consensus that genetic modification of crops is safe and beneficial, but refusing to agree with the scientific consensus that climate change is dangerous. I agree with the scientific consensus on GM crops not because it is a consensus but ­because I’ve looked at sufficient evidence. There is no consensus that climate change is going to be dangerous. Even the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says there is a range of possible outcomes, from harmless to catastrophic. I’m in that range: I think the top of that range is very unlikely. But the IPCC also thinks the top of its range is very unlikely.

Besides, consensus is a reasonable guide to data about the past but is no guide to the future and never has been. In non-linear systems with feedbacks, like economies or atmospheres, experts are notoriously bad at forecasting events. There is no such thing as an expert on the future.

It is undeniable that the ­climate models have failed to get global warming right. As the IPCC has confirmed, for the period since 1998, “111 of the 114 available climate-model simulations show a surface warming trend larger than the observations”. That is to say there is a consensus that the ­models are exaggerating the rate of global warming.

The warming has so far resulted in no significant or consistent change in the frequency or intensity of storms, tornadoes, floods, droughts or winter snow cover. The death toll from droughts, floods and storms has been going down dramatically. Not because weather has got safer, but because of technology and prosperity.

As two climate scientists, Richard McNider and John Christy, have put it, “We might forgive these modellers if their forecasts had not been so consistently and spectacularly wrong. From the ­beginning of climate modelling in the 1980s, these forecasts have, on average, always overstated the ­degree to which the Earth is warming compared with what we see in the real climate.”

In 1990, the first IPCC assessment predicted a temperature ­increase of 0.3C per decade (with an uncertainty range of 0.2C to 0.5C). In fact in the 2½ decades since, even though emissions have risen faster than in the business-as-usual scenario, the temperature has risen at an average rate of about 0.15C per decade based on surface measurements, or 0.12C per decade based on satellite data; that is, less than half as fast as ­expected and below the bottom of the uncertainty range!

What about 2015 and 2016 both being record hot years? Well, because of the massive El Nino, the HADCRUT4 surface temperature line just about inched up briefly in early 2016 into respectable territory in among the lower half of the model runs for a few months before dropping back out again. That’s all.

So why is the atmosphere not doing what it is told? Actually it is. These results are precisely in line with the physics of the greenhouse effect. A doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere cannot on its own produce dangerous warming. The sensitivity of the atmosphere to CO2 is about 1.2C per doubling. That is the consensus, spelled out clearly (if obscurely) by the IPCC several times over the years. And that’s what we are on course for at the moment.

So what is the problem? Well, the theory of dangerous climate change depends on a whole extra step in the argument — the ­supposed threefold amplification of carbon dioxide’s warming ­potential, principally by extra water vapour released into the ­atmosphere by a warming ocean, and accumulating at high altitudes. And the evidence for that is much more shaky.

Recent attempts to measure the sensitivity of the climate system to carbon dioxide using real data nearly all find that it is much lower than the models assume. So, if it’s consensus that floats your boat, there is an emerging consensus from observational estimates that climate sensitivity is low.

What’s more, all the high estimates of warming are based on an economic and demographic scenario called RCP 8.5, which is a very unrealistic one. It assumes that population growth stops decelerating and speeds up again.

It assumes that trade and innovation largely cease. It assumes that the ability of the oceans to ­absorb CO2 fails. It assumes that despite all this the income of the average person trebles. And most absurd of all, it assumes that we go back to using coal for almost everything, including to make motor fuel, so that by 2100 we are using 10 times as much coal as we are today. In short, it is a barking mad scenario.

It is beyond question that global warming has generated enormous research funds, measured in many billions, that this has stimulated all sorts of scientists, from botany to psychiatry, to link their work to climate change, and that almost none of this money flows to those with sceptical views.

As the distinguished NASA climate scientist Roy Spencer has written, “If you fund scientists to find evidence of something, they will be happy to find it for you. For over 20 years we have been funding them to find evidence of the human influence on climate. And they dutifully found it everywhere, hiding under every rock, glacier, ocean, and in every cloud, hurricane, tornado, raindrop, and snowflake. So, just tell scientists 20 per cent of their funds will be targeted for studying natural sources of climate change. They will find those, too.”

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Comments (3)

Amber

Excellent article by Matt Ridley , The Australian . The fact is the warming and increased CO2 contribute to making a greener planet . No climate model fudge necessary just good old fashion pictures and evidence that haven’t been “adjusted” by NOAA yet . Why do so called environmentalists have a problem with that yet support bird blending wind turbines that kill tens of thousands of birds , generate noise, ruin natural landscapes and are subsided by tax payers ?
Humans can be a dangerous risk to the environment and themselves but we should be happy with the current trend to warming and quit wasting $$Trillions that could be better put to use addressing the things that are going to take down our ability to do anything .
Climate changes, so where are the studies that show the benefits and drawbacks to a cooling world vs a warming world ? It is scientific fraud to claim catastrophic environmental risks based on grossly inaccurate climate model projections . It is just making shit up to sell fear for money .

Miner49er

Climate change is a false premise for regulating carbon dioxide emissions. Nature converts CO2 to limestone. Climate change may or may not be occurring, but is is for sure NOT caused by human fossil fuels use. There is no empirical evidence that fossil fuels use affects climate. Likely causes are well documented elsewhere.

Here’s why. Fossil fuels emit only 3% of total CO2 emissions. 95% comes from rotting vegetation. All the ambient CO2 in the atmosphere is promptly converted in the oceans to limestone and other carbonates, mostly through biological paths. CO2 + CaO => CaCO3. The conversion rate increases with increasing CO2 partial pressure. An equilibrium-seeking mechanism.

99.84% of all carbon on earth is already sequestered as sediments in the lithosphere. The lithosphere is a massive hungry carbon sink that converts ambient CO2 to carbonate almost as soon as it is emitted.
All living or dead organic matter (plants, animals, microbes etc. amount to only 0.00033% of the total carbon mass on earth. Ambient CO2 is only 0.00255%. Everything else is sophistry or mass hysteria.

A modern coal power plant emits few pollutants except water vapor and carbon dioxide. Coal remains the lowest cost and most reliable source of electric energy.

“Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.” Longfellow

JayPee

Don’t expect any warmist jerk
anyone who voted for Obama
anyone who will vote for rodham-clinton
anyone who believes msm crap
anyone who attended university and received
a degree in nothing
to ever believe you.

Aido

It gets even more dodgy. The ‘anomalies’ are differences from a 30-year average, referred to as the ‘norm’.. 1930-1960, then 1960-1990, which is the current ‘norm’. If you took 1940-1970, or 1950-1980 as the ‘norm’, you’d get different figures. How anyone falls for this beats me.

Amber

Ricky C
About 60 million voters would likely agree with you . Some people like to rescue pit bulls to because they figure they can “fix ‘ them .
Donald Trump doesn’t need one of his top enemies buttering up his daughter
to help sell a scary global warming scam .
Gore , Podesta , and Steyer are the best of pals and would love nothing more than to have a direct pipeline into Trump to help bring him down . Stating the obvious ,
they mean him absolutely no good and will do every thing they can to wreck his Presidency one way or the other .
Lets hope Ivanka dedicates her influence and smarts to help real people and solve real problems .
Stein got 1 % of the vote for a reason . The global warming con game is over .

amirlach

Ricky C

She better not. Just like its said, everyone worked very hard, myself particularly to get the waste out of the “Climate Change” feeding trough for consultants who do nothing for the economy. If I want to make sure my medical supplies at a local hospital in third world countries that I visit are modern and effective, their economy has to be booming, not cut down by giving money to international Climate Change hustlers.

JayPee

Dale

I don’t know whether or not Tim Ball actually made the above posting but if so, it’s in very poor taste and severely weakens his potential as a climate authority. Spamming web sites (I’ve seen this several times before on other sites) is not the way to gather interest or respect. People usually ignore such spam and laugh it off as just another fly-by-night.
I’ve read many of Tim Ball’s articles and have heard him speak via video. He has too much to offer to stoop to this low level nonsense, if this posting is indeed from Tim Ball.